Old wives’ tales in the 21st century
[Today's column]
The southwestern window of my home office overlooks the subdivision’s clubhouse pool. Since the school year ended, it’s been filled with the neighborhood’s children almost everyday. From the last week of March up until the week after the Lenten break, all I have been hearing are playful laughter and splashes of water.
But with the daily rains that started several days ago, along came new voices and new sounds. At least twice, I heard the scolding voices of mothers (or yayas, perhaps), ordering the children out of the water whenever it started to rain. “Umahon na kayo at baka magkasakit kayo sa ulan [Get out of the water now or you might get sick from the rain],” I distinctly heard. And I thought, “Isn’t the pool filled with water already? What’s the big deal about more water coming from the sky?”
Of course, it was a rhetorical question because I already knew the answer. Some people still believe that getting drenched in the rain automatically results in a bad cold that can lead to pneumonia and death. You know, just as some people still believe that walking barefoot on cold stone floors can cause polio. There are even more people who insist that it is circumcision that makes boys grow tall and develop low deep voices.
Just yesterday in my food blog, I learned a new one. I recently posted a recipe that I called “Squash, potato and chicken soup with croutons and cheese.” In the comment thread, a regular reader, Natz, shared the following story. This is a slightly truncated version:
After announcing that I would be trying your soup for lunch, my mom suddenly warned me and said that her mother NEVER combined KALABASA and CHICKEN together in the same dish because it causes KETONG (leprosy).
I, of course, questioned her how this could be true; chicken and squash being a traditional western combination either served individually in the same meal or literally cooked together. I laughed and dismissed it as an old wives’ tale. My dad, hearing our discussion, told me that there could be truth to these tales and that westerners have yet to learn more about superstition and eastern ways.
I couldn’t believe that my parents, both being highly educated, could even consider believing in something like this. I even reminded them of our roasted chicken and pumpkin pie dinners in the USA.
… I spent literally the whole morning Googling about chicken and kalabasa combinations and found nothing about it causing any skin diseases. I was hoping to maybe find the origins of the belief but found nothing on the subject matter. Instead, I found hundreds of thousands of recipes with chicken and squash combination.
This, and my experience that you have consistently given us recipes that are always delicious, further convinced me to go on with this recipe… I served the soup with slightly toasted bread on the side and that was a full meal in itself! It was so good that there were no more discussions about the chicken-kalabasa combination causing ketong. Everyone just enjoyed the soup.
Natz is lucky. All it took was some research and his mother was sufficiently convinced to eat the soup. But there are many instances when no amount of scientific data can convince old people that they are wrong. And it is especially trying when it’s a grandmother or mother-in-law imposing child-rearing standards. In a culture where it is considered disrespectful not to bow down to the wishes of the elders, it is devil-or-deep-blue-sea scenario for a lot of parents.
Try these superstitions culled from readers’ comments in a two-year-old entry in my Web log entitled “Causes of the common cold and other old wives’ tales.”
Rolly’s mother-in-law’s advice: In order for your child to be bright, burn paper with mathematical problems and solutions, mix the ash to rice being cooked.
Reader Mommy M’s mother-in-law “insisted I put a bigkis WITH a coin so the baby would be an ‘innie’. I was freaked! I told her I would only be introducing infection, to which she replied, ‘Huhugasan mo naman muna, ah [Of course, you’ll wash it first].’”
Fellow blogger Toe said, “My husband and I have chickenpox right now and my mother-in-law tells us not to take a bath.”
From Kongkong: “Personally, I hate the ‘usog’ theory. Since my mother-in-law is Kapampangan and still has close ties with her pals and relatives in the province, we still go home every so often… When we go, everyone dotes on my kids and puts ‘laway’ on them as ‘pwera usog’. You should see my arsenal of anti-pwera usog. Wipes, soap, alcohol…”
Then, there’s the belief that a woman who had just given birth should not take a bath for a month. And the really weird ones? Putting a volume of encyclopedia under the infant’s pillow to “feed his mind,” never sleeping without underwear because the hot air will enter the stomach either through the vulva or the rectum and cause gas, preventing a baby from turning on his/her stomach because it means he/she is asking for a sibling… I can go on and on.
You know, I’m sure that the oldies mean well with their insistence on following all these practices. But, for goodness’ sakes, one has to draw the line somewhere.
Comments
18 Responses to “Old wives’ tales in the 21st century”We feast everyday!
some of these superstitions are weird, funny and extremely interesting.
Wish we can trace their origins, eh?
Let the kids use umbrella in the pool when it’s raining so that rainwater won’t wet them. hehe.
Or a raincoat, maybe? LOL
I remember when i first had my menstruation, I didn’t tell my mom right away. She only found out about it on my second or third month. She went ballistic not because she was worried or anything but because I didn’t have the chance to perform the rituals – umupo sa dahong pinainitan para di sumakit ang puson tuwing nagkakaron, umakyat ng tatlong baitang sa hagdan para tatlong araw lang din tatagal ang regla, uminom ng kung anek anek…waaa… – My eyes were rolling when she started ranting about it. I even freaked out when she told me I can’t take a bath for 2 days whenever I’m having my period.
Wow, I keep learning new ones every time. Upumo sa dahong pinainitan? Umakyat sa tatlong baitang? WOW. LOL
how about painting your face with your own blood from your first menstruation to keep zits/pimples at bay? ngiiii! our neighbors in the province always said that this is an effective way to keep your skin clear. eeew, no thanks.
Yuck!!!
oh I forgot that! My ma’s ritual included that too! Yuck nga!
So, she actually made you do it? And you did? Did you?
nope! haha… she said she would have had asked me if I had told her from the beginning that I’m “dalaga” na. “buti na lang” i didn’t. sa isip ko lang siyempre baka magalit sakin lalo :-p Saan nga kaya nagmula ang mga kasabihan na to? Weird and “most of the time” ridiculous.
hehehehe I thought you did it.
You would think that Germans are better off, but they’re not! Despite the “best education in the world” (no matter what the PISA says), they still believe that going out with your hair wet from the shower during a freezing day will give you a cold. Drafts from windows left ajar during cold weather will also give you a cold. And sometimes, their beliefs contradict Filipino superstition. I’m pregnant and my MIL thinks that I’ll have a girl, because “girls take their mother’s beauty.” It reminds me of Snow White and her stepmother. This from a woman who studied engineering!
Contradicting indeed. Pregnant women here who look less attractive than usual are always told they’d give birth to boys. Beat ultrasound LOL!
Hahahaha I still laugh everytime I see someone covering their head here if it is raining with whatever they have (panyo, newspaper, etc.) cause they will get sick daw.
The no-bath thing during menstruation and after giving birth have always been common in the Binondo Chinatown area (as well as anywhere with Chinese-Filipino communities). I think it has something to do with the concept of shocking the nerves or muscles or whatever. I come from a less traditional family so I couldn’t know for sure; my mother and aunts have always insisted on good hygiene during monthly periods. However, only after working in China did I find out things are actually quite mellow here!
I’ve known more traditional friends here in Manila to, after giving birth, go through the “ge lai” — or special month in which anything “cold” is avoided from touching the body (chocolate is considered “heat”, tea is considered “cold”) — with the air conditioner turned on and the mothers or mothers-in-law allowing for the daily hot sponge bath. I went through one myself after my son was born to appease a slightly traditional mother-in-law, without air conditioning, too! But I put my foot down on daily hot sponge baths.
In China, my co-workers tell me they go through this for a month reclining in a hot room, eating hot meals and herbed chicken soup, no TV and books (strains the eyes of a weak woman), no sponge baths, no baths. So they really stank.
I wonder how the babies felt, breastfeeding.
I… I’m… Ah…
marami nyan dito sa bicol. wala akong sinunod kahit isa. of course galit ang great-grandmother at mother ko. i just don’t say a thing against it. basta i never followed one. when i gave birth (c-section) sabi ng ob-gyne eh puede na daw i-shampoo ang hair ko while still in the hospital. of course di pumayag ang nanay ko. 3 days kami sa hospital. sabi ko sa nanay ko, wag na nyang gawin sa akin yung tradition na ang unang ligo after manganak eh yung tubig na pinakulo with various leaves (herbs, roots and stuff). pag-uwi sa bahay after 3 days eh nag-shower ako ng hot water. (binalutan ko lang ng plastic ang tyan ko. too late, ang dami ko nang dandruff. at ang tagal maalis ng dandruff na yun, nag pa derma pa ako. ha ha ha!